Reflections on the contemporary church, culture, Christian philosophy and doctrine.

Friday, September 12, 2014

When Non-Discrimination is Discrimination

Recently the Cal State University system derecognized InterVarsity as an official campus organization. According to their non-discrimination policy,
IV would be required to allow and/or have non-Christians in their leadership
and IV has refused to sign the appropriate documentation. As a result IV, and other Christian campus
organizations such as Chi Alpha, no longer have free access to campus rooms and
resources and are not recognized as official campus clubs. According to the way the Cal State system has
enforced its non-discrimination policies, other campus organizations such as
Greek, academic, and sports clubs, are still allowed to discriminate along
lines pertinent to their mission and membership.

All of this is, of course, in the name of non-discrimination. Ironic, isn’t it, that a Non-Discrimination
policy has created some very targeted exclusion from the public square. With a case like this what we have is pretty
naked discrimination masking itself as non-discrimination.

Non-Discrimination policies are allegedly intended to
keep organizations from unfairly choosing against people, likely for bad or ad
hominem reasons. In their simpler forms
they are intended to keep people from having their feelings hurt for not being
able to be a part of some group. What
the Cal State policy has done is discriminate against Christian organizations
and exclude them from the fraternity of campus organizations. And many foresee that if this policy is
carried to its logical extreme, most all campus organizations will be similarly affected.

In addition, the philosophy behind the non-discrimination
policy is far from neutral or valueless.
It may be assumed that these policies, given their name and all, do not
impose a set of social values but instead keep other, badder, people from
imposing theirs. However, just a few
moments of reflection tell a different story.
The belief that Christian campus groups MUST have or allow
non-Christians to run their organizations, is a value – a belief about the
moral rightness or wrongness of an idea.
The value may be simply stated something like, “on a diverse campus, it
is better for Christian organizations to be forced to admit non-Christian
leaders than to allow them to have their way and not allow them.” That is a value statement. And it has been effectively imposed in a
coercive way.

I don’t know about you, but I feel a lot safer.

As a side note, many public college campuses are quickly
becoming the least likely places to hear or be able to express opinions that do
not cohere with the reigning conventional wisdom. More irony, indeed.

In the end, these non-discrimination policies have done
nothing but impose anti-Christian values on Christians and in public arenas for
a lot of transparent and illogical reasons.
So be it. I think the real
question is something like, “Now what?”